Excerpt
CHAPTER I ASTOUNDING NEWS FROM THE SHORE
"This is most astounding news!" exclaimed Captain Horatio Passford.
It was on the deck of the magnificent steam-yacht Bellevite, of which he was the owner; and with the newspaper, in which he had read only a few of the many head-lines, still in his hand, he rushed furiously across the deck, in a state of the most intense agitation.
It would take more than one figure to indicate the number of millions by which his vast wealth was measured, in the estimation of those who knew most about his affairs; and he was just returning from a winter cruise in his yacht.
His wife and son were on board; but his daughter had spent the winter at the South with her uncle, preferring this to a voyage at sea, being in rather delicate health, and the doctors thought a quiet residence in a genial climate was better for her.
The Bellevite had been among the islands of the Atlantic, visiting the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and was now coming from Bermuda. She had just taken a pilot fifty miles from Sandy Hook, and was bound to New York, for the captain's beautiful estate, Bonnydale, was located on the Hudson.
As usual, the pilot had brought on board with him the latest New-York papers, and one of them contained the startling news which appeared to have thrown the owner of the Bellevite entirely off his balance; and it was quite astounding enough to produce this effect upon any American.
"What is it, sir?" demanded Christopher Passford, his son, a remarkably bright-looking young fellow of sixteen, as he followed his father across the deck.
"What is it, Horatio?" inquired Mrs. Passford, who had been seated with a book on the deck, as she also followed her husband.
The captain was usually very cool and self-possessed, and neither the wife nor the son had ever before seen him so shaken by agitation. He seemed to be unable to speak a word for the time, and took no notice whatever of his wife and son when they addressed him.
For several minutes he continued to rush back and forth across the deck of the steamer, like a vessel which had suddenly caught a heavy flaw of wind, and had not yet come to her bearings.
"What is the matter, Horatio?" asked Mrs. Passford, when he came near her. "What in the world has happened to overcome you in this manner, for I never saw you so moved before?"
But her husband did not reply even to this earnest interrogatory, but again darted across the deck, and his lips moved as though he were muttering something to himself. He did not look at the paper in his hands again; and whatever the startling intelligence it contained, he seemed to have taken it all in at a glance.
Christy, as the remarkably good-looking young man was called by all in the family and on board of the Bellevite, appeared to be even more astonished than his mother at the singular conduct of his father; but he saw how intense was his agitation, and he did not follow him in his impulsive flights across the deck.
Though his father had always treated him with great consideration, and seldom if ever had occasion to exercise any of his paternal authority over him, the young man never took advantage of the familiarity existing between them....